John Buchan 1915. The Thirty-Nine Steps. Penguin: London. 144 pp.

Intriguing to revisit a “classic” 104 years after publication. The author’s foreword doesn’t claim it to have that status and I agree, certainly doesn’t belong in the “100 best novels” as The Guardian’s recent survey claimed. But it is an short, unassuming escape read; a yarn just as the author intended.